Wednesday November 15, 2017

PLANET ROCK Astronauts Landing On Lanzarote

Astronauts from the European Space Agency will be touching down on Lanzarote again shortly to continue their training for future space missions.

The visiting team form part of the ESA´s Panagea project which is designed to train space explorers for missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. And Lanzarote has been selected as their training ground because its volcanic region offers the best place on this planet to explore the geological interactions between water and volcanic activity - two of the most important factors in any future search for life elsewehere in the solar system.

Lanzarote´s pristine, recently formed volcanic landscape and arid climate provides the visiting astronauts with a unique geological museum to explore - with lava flows replicating the surface of the moon and volcanoes similar to those found on some parts of Mars, according to the teams science coordinator Matteo Massironi. Creating the ideal simulated environment for Europe´s future planetary explorers.